Home-made grenade launcher digital camera shown off at DEF CON

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With the Black Hat security conference out of the way, it’s time for its unruly, wall-eyed brother — DEF CON — to take center stage. DEF CON is always a source of ingenious hacks and unconventional applications of technology, but Saturday’s presentation of Firefly, the grenade launcher-cum-digital-camera, will certainly rank high up the Sklyraov Meter.

Firefly, in all honesty, is nothing more than a wireless digital camera fired from a grenade launcher. It is designed to be shot 500 feet (152m) into the air, and then gently descend by parachute, all the while taking photos of everything below it. Why you ask? For real-time, high-resolution, “force multiplying” battlefield reconnassaince. The developers, Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet, admit that the Firefly isn’t exactly a new idea — military forces around the world already use throwable camera balls and grenade-style cameras — but this is their attempt to do something similar “on the cheap.”

As a result, the Firefly is launched with a 37mm flare gun instead of a grenade launcher — and flare guns are actually legal in the US. There’s no data on what kind of camera or wireless transmitter Firefly uses, but there are plenty of commodity, off-the-shelf components to choose from. To turn it into a grenade, the camera is simply placed inside a hard plastic bottle. All in all, according to TechWorld, Gostom and Marpet’s invention might one day be commercially available just $500.

The question, though — and DEF CON always raises more questions than it answers — is what Firefly will ultimately be used for. It could certainly cut military spending, and it could significantly boost the effectiveness of search-and-rescue teams… but imagine Firefly’s potential in the hands of a consumer! Photographers could capture awesome images of cityscapes and landscapes — imagine the video footage you could capture — but at the same time, voyeurs could take photos of almost anything or anyone, which would have all sorts of repercussions for privacy and security.

Both of these inventions are civilian-made and built using entirely off-the-shelf components — and yet they provide features that are worryingly close to military-grade applications. Basically, for better or for worse, we are seeing the commoditization and democratization of advanced technology. Once upon a time there was a chasm between commercial and government-level computers — and now the gap is something that can be surmounted by some ingenuity and a few hours in the basement.

Thanks. They’re sneaky — they comment, then edit their comments. Edits are not sent as notifications… so we don’t see that they’ve put a nasty link in :(

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